Lunch at a friend’s house – a delicious array of Spanish tapas

A New Approach to Teach a Healthy Eating Diet

I was invited to participate in an industry panel at Premier Global Training in London last Friday, in order to give students an inside look at what it’s like to run one’s own personal training business.  Premier Global has been kind enough to invite me to speak in the past because I have an individual voice.  I do believe it’s because I approach the business of fitness differently.

Nowhere is this difference more obvious than when I was asked on the panel about the nutritional guidance I offer my clients.

My approach to nutrition is distinctive – an aspect that separates my personal training service from most others.  Another panellist tackled the question first, saying he favoured an elimination diet, restricting his clients to a non-wheat, non-dairy, non-alcohol, non-caffeine diet.

My answer was different.

I explained that my approach to a client’s nutritional diet does not revolve around completing food diaries or inflexible rules, but rather a single question: ‘how organised are you prepared to be about food?’  I know that in order to make a health-conscious diet effective, it needs to suit the client’s personality.  It’s no good telling a fish-loathing, broccoli-hating, cappuccino-loving dieter, that they need to eat fish, broccoli and sacrifice cappuccinos.  I believe a health-conscious diet needs to fit comfortably with a client’s life and tastes.

This way of approaching nutrition – especially with a view to weight loss – is not industry-standard practice.  But then, my clients are not industry-standard either.

After the panel, I stepped out onto the Seven Sisters Road.  As I’m not often in that part of town, I took the opportunity to visit the local independent ‘Happening Bagel Bakery’ and enjoyed one of their excellent halloumi bagels guilt-free. Being individual is a wonderful thing.

Nb Update: Premier Global Training has ceased trading since this article was written. However many of the same team have formed a new training provider – The Health and Fitness Institute – to whom I share a link now. This link does not endorse this new organisation and is supplied for information purposes only.